Sultanas, yes. Apricots, no

Just when you thought you had heard the last on the subject of breakfast muesli, it makes a return.

Yes folks, I am revisiting the muesli jar and the last two bothersome items. Sultanas and dried apricots.

Both sultanas and dried apricots fall under the heading of dried fruit and although you might think either of these would be readily available on the supermarket shelves as an Australian product, this is not so.

Sultanas are more easily found than apricots. At the moment imported dried apricots rule on the supermarket shelves; it might be possible to find some Australian dried apricots but the ingredient labels will invariably read ‘local and imported ingredients’. How much is local content and how much is imported is anybody’s guess. Turkey seems to lead the way with the imported products and Turkish dried apricots are easily identifiable by their plump shape and bright golden colour.

All of the above has led to dried apricots being moved to the too-hard basket for the moment. And being temporarily removed from the breakfast muesli ingredient list. I use the word temporarily; I am at my optimistic best today and like Mr Micawber, I live in hope that “something will turn up” in the local dried apricot line.

Sultanas on the other hand may be imported or they may be marked ‘Australian sultanas’ on the packaging but sitting right next to those two words it will be the words canola oil, with no country of origin identification. Vegetable oil of one type or another often appears as part of the ingredients description on dried fruit packaging. While the consumer may think they are buying only sultanas (or currants, or raisins) they will invariably find they are buying an extra such as the vegetable oil, which is used to glaze the fruit, reducing its moisture loss and maintaining product quality.

I’m not interested in whether oil has been added to my sultanas and I am less than impressed to find yet another ingredient whose origin cannot be traced.

Yet another cause to get the magnifying glass out and run it over the labelling.

Back inside the muesli jar

I’ve returned to the muesli jar to take the lid off and investigate the final ingredients making up my breakfast muesli.

These ingredients are:

sunflower seeds

pepitas

dried apricots

chopped almonds

natural sultanas

The sunflower seeds and the pepitas are the major ingredients in the muesli after the cereals. Checking out the local supermarkets it came as no surprise to find that both these ingredients are imported and mostly from China.

The outcome of this finding might see the breakfast muesli go the way of the dodo during the Ausfood Challenge.

If I remove the rice cereal, pepitas and sunflower seeds I will be left with rolled oats, oat bran and bran cereal ; neither an inviting nor inspiring choice for starting off the day’s menu. I will have to extend my search and do it quickly before the two February Ausfood days roll around.

Dried apricots fall into the same too-hard basket as the sunflower seeds and pepitas. Dried apricots produced in this country seem to be a thing of the past. Turkish imports of dried apricots have been around for some time now but the death knell for Australian production seemed to occur at the time an Australian company, well known and with a long standing reputation for producing home-grown dried fruit was taken over by foreign ownership.

I am pleased to say Australian almonds and sultanas are readily available; read all about it in the following post.

Australian almonds always available

Australian almonds are always available.

However you need to take care when picking the packet off the shelf as things are not always as they seem.  There are almonds from other countries and it is possible to find as I did, that one particular brand night have, say almond meal, in one supermarket as an Australian product and in another supermarket as an Australian and imported product.

Australian almonds come in many different forms; some suited to snacking and others suited to the requirements of busy cooks.

Here's what I found in my search:

Natural almonds
Flaked almonds
Slivered Almonds
Blanched almonds
Natural sliced almonds
Almond meal

In my local quartet of supermarkets I found two main brands, together with the supermarkets' house brand.

My choice for my breakfast muesli will be natural almonds.

Australian sultanas are available but not in nearly the same quantity as almonds. They come in two types: Australian Grown and Australian Grown Natural. I'm intrigued by the labelling. Is there some unnatural way of growing sultanas?  In the local supermarket foursome, sultanas are pretty well limited to one brand and maybe a house brand.

They are also available at my local deli, which is where I usually buy them and where they are clearly labelled Australian sultanas.

Bran Cereal Options

Standing in the local Green Supermarket, beside a conveniently positioned flat top trolley piled high with empty bread racks, I take out my trusty notebook and pen, pick down the two boxes of cereal I need to examine and place them under the Ausfood magnifying glass.

This is what I see.

First the box of Vogel Ultra Bran.

It is Australian made; there is a logo, a map of Australia. It’s not the Australian Made logo with kangaroo and no country of origin is to be found. There are many, many words of varying shapes, sizes and colours on every side of this box and I spend some minutes searching. I cannot find any words telling me this product is made from local and imported ingredients.

I look at the ingredients list; it’s lengthy.

Wheat bran (39%)

Wholemeal wheat flour (Vitamins (thiamin & folate)

Wheat flour

Sugar

Hi-maize TM cornstarch

Linola (linseed meal 8% soy (2%) (Soy flour& isoflavone concentrate)

Minerals (tricalcium carbonate, zinc oxide)

Salt

Natural colour (annatto)

Vitamins (E & folate)

Food acid (citric acid)

An exhausting, if not exhaustive list.

I turn to the Kellogg’s All-Bran box; it has the Australian Made logo but once again, no information about the origin of the ingredients. I’m greatly relieved to find this ingredient list is shorter.

Wheat bran (85%)

sugar

barley malt extract

vitamins (riboflavin, folate, thiamin)

As far as being bran cereals options eligible for the Ausfood list, these two have fallen at the first hurdle. No country of origin on the packaging, no eligibility for the list. Simple.

However, among all those listed ingredients there is a couple that attracted my attention and I may, on a day when time is passing very slowly and I have absolutely nothing better to do, investigate them further. Not because I consider they may be products of Australia but I am curious about their real make-up.

These two are Hi-maize TM cornstarch and isoflavone concentrate. They might be considered as red herrings, though I suspect that neither of them will have anything to do with fish, more to do with sugar and spice I’m thinking.

I’ll put them on the back-burner. Oh no!! I‘ve said that word……

I’ll regret that, you can be sure.

Knocking Down the Cereal Hurdles

I’ve finished the cereal search; finished the prancing around the supermarkets and while there hasn’t exactly been gnashing of teeth there certainly has been some muttering. And a lot of walking back and forth along the aisles trying to second-guess where the supermarkets might shelve some of the items on my search-list.
Anything that is not boxed and branded with any of those well known breakfast cereals names are the poor cousins of the cereal section of the supermarket. Gathered together, almost as an afterthought, the smaller, less interesting, plainly packaged and doubtless least profitable items are either found at the end of the cereal shelf row or laying in obscurity on the very bottom shelf.

However, by dint of application I have found almost all of the four products on my cereal for muesli list. Not all in the one supermarket of course – that would be too much to hope for wouldn’t it? Spread out over the four supermarkets within walking distance of the Trash Palace, I have found the following:

Local Green Supermarket

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats           100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                    100% Natural Oat Bran                      Product of Australia
Homebrand Wholegrain Oats              100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Homebrand Natural Oats                      100% Oat Bran                                  Product of Australia
Homebrand Processed Bran                See list below                                   Product of Australia
Ingredients listed on packet: Wheat bran, wheat flour, sugar, salt, emulsifier (471)
Rice Bran                                               Not Available

Local Red Supermarket

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats           100% Wholegrain Oats                       Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                    100% Natural Oat Bran                        Product of Australia
Bran Cereal                                           Not Available
Rice Bran                                              Not Available

Eastern IGA

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats             100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                      100% Natural Oat Bran                       Product of Australia
Bran Cereal - Only Options:
Kellogg’s All bran
Vogel’s Soy & Linseed
Rice Bran                                                Not Available

Northern IGA

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats                  100% Wholegrain Oats                   Product of Australia

Lowan Oat Bran                                            100% Natural Oat Bran                     Product of Australia

Bran Cereal                                                   Only Option:                                      Kellogg’s All bran

Rice Bran                                                      Only Option:                              Energy Fields Rice Bran Cereal

So there you have it.

Lowan Rolled Oats and Oat Bran have all the bases covered: they will definately make it onto the ingredients list. The Local Green Supermarket offers some acceptable items priced to suit the budget conscious, while the bran cereal options mentioned in the above tables need all round closer examination along with the Northern IGA rice bran cereal. Rice bran, not unexpectedly, might prove to be difficult to track down.

I'm about halfway through in the breakfast muesli stakes. I might need to broaden my horizons and extend my search into the neighbouring suburbs.

Cereal hurdles

Making a start on the Ausfood front has given me an insight into some of the difficulties ahead.

Let's look at the muesli  I make up, on a regular basis, for breakfast each morning.  I've been using this recipe for years now and although it may not be the most exciting muesli on the face of the earth it suits me. It is based on a recipe from Sandra Cabot's book "The X Syndrome" and in theory it is designed to help with a weight problem.  No doubt it would, if only I kept to the rest of the program.

However I digress.

The breakfast muesli is made up of the following ingredients:

• rolled oats
• processed bran
• oat bran
• rice bran
• natural sultanas
• dried apricots
• chopped almonds
• pepitas
• sunflower seeds

Due to the irritation factor when chopping up the dried apricots, which stick to the knife and the equally irritating almonds that jump all over the place when I chop them, these two items only make the cut on that rare occasion when all the planets are in the right alignment.

First I will deal with cereal component of the muesli - the rest I will deal with at a later time. This search will take place within walking distance of the Trash Palace. I will be looking in the local Red and Green supermarkets and the two local second-tier supermarkets.

This promises to be time consuming. I am confident about walking straight to the areas where I will find rolled oats and oat bran in all the afore-mentioned supermarkets but I am not so confident about finding the bran cereal or the rice bran cereal.

All this could lead to a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing, flouncing about and gnashing of teeth.